Subaeria (Illogika, $14.99 USD) is rougelike action puzzler in which you play a teenaged protagonist named Styx who is prone to hacking her VR game unit to get more time online. The problem with that is that Subaeria is set in a time when all crime is punishable by “cleansing” both the perpetrator and her entire family. Of course the game opens with Styx getting caught for the crime of hacking.
The cyberpunk, post apocalyptic, underwater setting is reminiscent of Blade Runner (without the sexbots) and the brightly colored cutscene comic panels are beautiful. Subaeria is a top down puzzler that ask you you to clear levels of the same cleansing bots that have murdered your family to get to the presidential palace to confront the dictator whose laws led to the death of her family. Styx is your typical teenager. She seems to think that she is beyond reproach that the threat of capital punishment doesn’t apply to her. And then she learns, the hard way.
Death is something that there is a lot of in Subaeria. Styx dies, a lot. Or at least she does when I’m playing her. In order to move forward in the game you have to clear each procedurally generated level before you are allowed to move forward. In order to clear the level you must either destroy the bots or trick them into destroying one another. Your only weapons are apps on your companion drone. These apps allow you do a variety of different things like “push” things around the environment, control the bots for a short period time, or deploy decoys of yourself to draw their attention. As you progress through the levels you acquire more apps that can be picked up and used in your next life. Yes, the game expects you to die, a lot. And each death set you back to the starting level of the game with no apps and a whole lot of levels to make it through again. As you master new puzzles and game mechanics the game scaffolds them and gives you something new on the next level to make sure that you are sufficiently challenged.
If achievement/trophy hunting is your thing the trophies pop fairly frequently and you even get achievements for dying (fortunately for me). Also fortunately, the game has a quick restart option so that you can go from dead to back in the fight in seconds. Overall, Subaeria is a fun, fast paced (though unforgiving) rougelike that you can comfortably spend hours playing and replaying. It’s out now for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
